"Yes, we can."
Words spoken by a candidate promising change and reform. Instead, it has become a mantra for corporate America, as they practice business as usual.
As President Obama begins his last two years in office, there are more and more glaring examples of his true agenda. Joining the "Democrat Elite," alongside the Clintons, he has succeeded in pushing the Democratic Party even further to the right, both in economics and in foreign policy, while simultaneously distancing himself from the working class constituency who voted for him.
Take, for example, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which the president is pushing to get passed this year. In closed-door sessions with major corporations, officials from the U.S. and 11 other countries (Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam) have been working for 6 years on this bill...coincidentally the same amount of time Obama has been in office. While touted as a "free trade" bill, trade had very little to do with it.
For those of us who are adamantly opposed to Citizens United, TPP would make it pale by comparison. It would give large corporations virtual autonomy, over government officials in these countries.
As we struggle to pass a minimum wage bill, TPP would give incentives to move more workers offshore, to countries like Korea, with low-wage workers and virtually no environmental regulations. This, of course, would allow even further evasion of U.S. taxes being paid by these companies.
What we know about TPP is only from leaked information. Even most of congress has been kept in the dark.
http://www.citizen.org/...
All of this suggests that President Obama is going against the wishes of congressional Democrats and his own base on this issue. It also suggests (dare I say it?) a Republican viewpoint on corporate sponsorship and deregulation.
One also has to wonder what good it does to cut our dependence on foreign oil, encourage development of alternative energies and regulate carbon emissions in THIS country...when TPP would allow us to sell dirty energy, as well as sub-par food and drugs to other countries?
Everything about TPP sides with corporations over people. It lowers our taxbase even further. It reduces our workforce to part-time labor. Eventually, it will see the end of union-protected jobs altogether, as we struggle to compete in a world market.
All of this allows us to see Barack Obama for what he really is...a centrist, in bed with Wall Street lobbyists, with no desire for change.
Democrats: it is time for us to stop blaming the Republicans for all our woes, when we keep electing Democrats that swerve to the right, selling us out just as quickly as their GOP counterparts.
And if we elect Hillary in 2016, we can expect more of the same.